Backyard Birthday Party

Josie and Bryn had a joint birthday party last Saturday. Thankfully, the sun was shining and we were able to have the party outside. The swingset was a HUGE hit.

Here are almost all of the kids at the party. Obviously the "Lined up" look doesn't last for long.

By chance, all the girls were wearing the same color pink and sat on the same side of the table. I know by the teenage years they will probably call and coordinate their outfits but this time it was merely coincidental.

Everyone brought a wrapped book for a book exchange. It was fun to see all the kids opening gifts and being able to take a new book home.

Balloons, balloons and more balloons. Can you have too many balloons at a kid's birthday party?

There were lots of hugs.
Here is Josie and her friend, Lowen.

Josie just adores Bryn's little sister, Ansley. She is always giving her snuggles and trying to play with her. It is very sweet. Thankfully, Ansley seems to like it, too.


Bryn, Josie and Lowen enjoying their gift bags and lollipops.

Bryn, Ansley, Josie, Derek and Lowen posing for one final picture.

More of Josie's actual birthday coming soon in the next post.

First Day of Preschool and Party Prep

Josie had her first day of co-op preschool last week. This year she will be very busy. She goes to co-op "English" preschool on Thursday and Friday mornings and will continue to go to Europa Kids "German" preschool on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. She will definitely be ready for Kindergarten. Both schools are great and it has been fun for both of us to meet some new friends.

Josie and Bryn are having a joint birthday party on Saturday. Today Bryn came over to play and the three of us worked on stuffing the gift bags for their friends. Smiles and giggles are never lacking when the two girls get together.

My camera is pretty much shot. Several of the main buttons no longer work and the zoom no longer works. Apparently it is not uncommon for a camera to have a 3 year life span!! I guess I probably did use my more than most over the last 3 years. This is one of the reasons for not posting much to the blog.
Since the camera is on its last leg we've decided to give it to Josie so she can take pictures. She obviously needs a bit of help but here are a few of her recent shots. You pretty much have to move yourself to get within her frame. She also likes taking pictures of people on Skype or the computer.

Every morning Marty reads a magazine while eating his breakfast at the bar. Here is Josie doing the same.

Vacation- Seattle and California

We had a great time with Marty's relatives from Germany. Kay (pronounced Kai) Susi and Danny fly into Seattle for a week of sightseeing, seafood and shopping The weather was perfect all week and we often found ourselves down at Alki Beach.
After their week here, which included going on the water taxi, monorail, visiting the Space Needle, riding The Duck, attending a Seattle Sounders soccer match, going to a Zoo concert, hiking near Mt Rainier, the underground tour of Seattle, the Museum of Flight, visits with family and much more.... we all took of for Santa Monica, CA for a bit of relaxation at the beach.

Here is Josie at the beach. She wasn't so keen on going in the water but slowly warmed up to the idea.

She did LOVE playing in the sand, though.

She also LOVED eating ice cream almost every night.

We were eating dinner one night and kids kept walking by with balloons from a different restaurant. Josie desperately wanted one. A little while later a clown was walking by and we asked him if we could buy one of his balloons. He was a rather sad clown and just said "here you go, take them all. It is my first day here. I'm from Turkey and I left my job and country to come here and be a clown." I'm not sure how he thought he would be able to support himself being a clown here. We wished him well and gave him a few dollars for the balloons and off he went. So now Josie had 6 balloons tightly tied to her wrist. Their was so much pull on the balloons that she walked around the rest of the night with her hand raised to at least shoulder level.

Danny and Josie became best of friends.

Marty has a friend that works at 20th Century Fox Studios. We got a behind the scenes tour or the facilities including seeing all the props for The Simpson's Movie.

Josie enjoyed dancing to the music every night. Thankfully a little girl about her age came over and started dancing with her. Finally someone her own age. Josie and this little girl had a ball as did everyone else who was watching them. They must have danced/run around like this for about 30 minutes. She slept well that night :)